Once there was a boy with giant, beautiful wings, and wide, innocent brown eyes. He always flew everywhere, never stopping. He would look down and see the hills and houses, and feel his scruffy, needing-a-haircut hair swish and the wind under his wings. He especially loved flying around at night. He would see the lights in buildings down below, and sometimes run into the occasional bat. It was truly amazing; the feeling of the world, huge and surrounding him, of just endless space, where he could just go and go, fly away. Something was chasing him, but whatever it was, it would never catch him as long as he had room to run. He was faster than anyone he had ever seen, faster than the people struggling up hills and though forests down below. He felt that he had to keep flying. As long as he was in the air, he was safe. Nothing could get him there.

The ground was a dangerous place though. Every time he landed, to take a break, slow down and try and see the things he was passing, he could feel it coming. BAM. BAM. BAM. Like giant footsteps, getting louder and louder. He felt the urge to fly away grow stronger and stronger. He couldn't stay here. He didn't belong. Whatever was coming seemed to spell that out to him with every footstep, every ground shaking bump.

He had thought of staying and waiting, seeing what the steps belonged to. But every time he tried, he got too scared when it drew close, so he would run. Whatever was coming, it couldn't be good. It wasn't like the little people he flew over, with their self-absorbed conversations and meager knowledge of their corner of the world. This was bigger, and it knew what it was doing. It was coming for him.

The boy used to have a corner of the world that belonged to him, but he had flown away from it as soon as he got his wings. He barely remembered it now. He wondered wistfully what it had been like, but shook his head and reminded himself that he would never turn back. All he remembered were green hills and brown houses. Just like so much of the world he had flown over.

So he flew on and on and on, until he couldn't go and longer any had to rest for a few minutes. He sat in a tree and listened to the booms go from quiet, heartbeat-like rumbles, to lounder, base-drum like booms. He could feel himself shaking. Would today be the day he gathered his nerves to fly towards the noise? Except now he couldn't; the noise was all around him. He wanted to run, or fly away, but he wasn't sure which way to go. He stood there in confusion, finally ready to face whatever it was.

But nothing came. He stood alone in the forest and felt the the noise traveling surround him. Nothing approached him.

Then he remembered. The world itself was the noise. It was the source of the loud booming that was in his head, never ceasing. It was what drove him to fly in the first place. He remembered when he was even younger, how it seemed to torment him. All the other boys never minded it, said it was just the world, nothing to be afraid of . That there was nothing he could do. That it happened to everyone around here eventually. So he had ran away to find a place where that loud noise didn't exist. Where he could hear himself think without that loud boom telling him what to do, how to behave. He was going to be different, he had told himself, and had been proud when he had felt his wings sprout on his back

How long had he been running? How could he possibly forget his home? He didn't belong there, but he didn't belong anywhere. What was the point? Had he learned anything on this long, tiring journey?

He looked down at his hands, and saw they were shaking. His whole body was. He had been running away for so long, and all he had done was lose himself for a little while. He hadn't lost the noise. It might sound slightly different here, but he didn't think he could ever lose it. It would always be there.

So he lay down on the ground, and told it that it had won. That it had broken him down, for now. He was sick of running. He let the noise wash over him. The longer he sat, the less he felt like sitting up and flying away again. He was fine with the noise. Why had he fought it again? It was so easy to just sit around and be a land dweller. He didn't want to fly anymore. He couldn't seem to remember anything. He felt something was wrong with what he was doing, but couldn't say what. Everything felt blurry and out of focus.

And with that, a giant spider popped out of the ground, impressed with itself that it had finally caught its pray. It had spent ages stalking and chasing it, trying to tire the prey out. And now the prey was alone and vulnerable, caught in the worlds web of sound and distraction, that the had long since grown immune to.

The boy did notice the spider wrapping him up. But he was so numb, and couldn't get himself to care. He thought that what happened would happen. He would run no longer, and fighting seemed useless. He was done. He felt that the world would be better off without him.

And so he died.(I see no need for gory details here)

The End.

Wow I continue to impress myself with how terrible my stories are. This ending is pointlessly sad and anticlimactic, but somehow that was the only way I could see this story going down. Sorry to anyone who wanted a happy one.

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